


run killer run

by badacts



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Family, Gen, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22871329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: “Melvin Smalls. Forty-five years old, caucasian, eagle tattoo on his left shoulder. Mid-level lacky for one of the nicer gangs in the Narrows,” Tim recites.“...never heard of him,” Jason replies.“I, uh,” Tim says again, and then, “I killed him.”
Relationships: Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne
Comments: 41
Kudos: 674





	1. Chapter 1

Even if Jason weren’t hypersensitive - some would say paranoid, but no one who hasn’t gone into the Pit  _ gets _ a say - he would have known the kid was there.

That’s the first indicator he gets that something’s off. Jason can talk shit about Red Robin with the best of them, but only idiots underestimate their opponents or their allies, and he’s no idiot. The truth is that the kid is  _ good _ . 

“Baby bird,” he acknowledges. It’s been a long night, and he was looking forward to spending the rest of it in his place alone.

“Jason,” Tim rasps. He’s in the shadows somewhere, but his breathing would be unlevel and stuttering even to an untrained ear. 

Jason reaches for the light switch, but he’s stopped by Tim’s quiet, “ _ No _ .”

“Baby  _ Batman _ ,” Jason corrects himself with half a smile. “What’s up, Timmy?” He makes sure his tone is easy, casual. Half of him is trying to figure out why Tim might be here in the dark, why he might be angry enough with Jason to come and attempt to kick his ass, but he’s coming up blank. The thought is kind of funny, though.

“I, uh,” Tim says. “I…”

Just like that he rules out anger. Tim Drake, when angry, turns brutally cold, hard and smart and fiercer for it. Tim Drake doesn’t  _ stutter _ when he’s angry.

Any trace of amusement, half-fatalistic or otherwise, goes cold in Jason’s gut. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Tim says. “He is.”

“Who?” Jason demands. His mind, always tending towards traitorous, plays a rapid sequence of the faces of their shared acquaintances: Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Damian, Duke. 

“Melvin Smalls,” Tim says.

“ _ Who? _ ”

“Melvin Smalls. Forty-five years old, caucasian, eagle tattoo on his left shoulder. Mid-level lacky for one of the nicer gangs in the Narrows,” Tim recites.

“...never heard of him,” Jason replies.

“I, uh,” Tim says again, and then, “I killed him.”

“Okay,” Jason says, and then nothing else. Or, wait; “Are you sure?”

He can’t see the kid’s face, but he can feel the dismissive look that earns him. “Yes.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Jason says after a moment, rather than,  _ so you came running to your big brother the murderer _ , which is what he’s thinking. Without considering it, his voice has slipped into the tone he’d use on distressed kids and sixteen-year-olds who aren’t vigilantes.

“No,” Tim replies.

“...okay,” Jason says, when the silence stretches. “What do you want to happen right now?”

Because, if the kid asks, Jason will take the fall for this one. Bruce is already shitty with him, so it won’t make any difference. Of course, Bruce is also a detective, and they’re going to have to work fast to fool him, not stand around in the dark in Jason’s apartment.

“Is it,” Tim asks, “Is it always...like that?”

His voice sounds very un-Tim-like, all of a sudden. Small. Precarious. Jason asks, “What do you mean?”

“Slow,” Tim says. He means ‘ugly’.

“Yeah,” Jason says, because sometimes it’s quick instead of slow, but everyone dies ugly. Jason’s the expert.

“Oh,” comes the reply, sounding punched out and far too close to a sob for Jason’s comfort. Christ, he doesn’t mind helping the kid hide a body, but he _ really _ doesn’t want to get cried on.

“Look, kid, shit happens,” Jason says briskly. “I know B is wild over the idea that killing one person will instantly convert him into some kind of senseless murder machine, but it’s not true. You make a mistake, you fix it, you don’t kill anyone  _ else _ , it’s fine. So relax. The guy’s dead, so what? He was a career criminal who probably kicked puppies in his spare time. You did the world a favour. I’d offer you a beer, except I’m not convinced you’re old enough to drink it.” He knows exactly how old Tim Drake is, but that’s beside the point.

“Oh,” Tim repeats.

“Just tell him I did it,” Jason suggests, because honestly, fuck this, “Not like he won’t believe you.”

“That’s,” Tim says, and coughs.

It sounds...wet. 

“Don’t cry,” Jason warns. 

“‘M not,” Tim replies. True to his word, his voice doesn’t sound damp. It sounds vague.

Hoping to stem a breakdown, Jason inches across the kitchen in the direction of the electric kettle. Tim, like Jason, was raised in Alfred Pennyworth’s household, and Jason’s sure of nothing more than he is the calming ritual of making tea.

He says, “Okay. Earl grey?” And then his boot slides a little on the floor, and it’s not-right enough to break his concentration on hot beverages and pull his eyes down. 

This apartment has expensive-looking fake-wood laminate in a fashionably modern silver-white. Even with the lights off, Jason can pick out the darker stain across it at his feet. 

He dives across to the doorway and flicks the lights on.

It hurts his eyes, but also throws Tim into sharp relief where he stands in the middle of Jason’s kitchen. The kid is pale, his gaze focussed blankly past Jason for a long moment. Then the skin between his brows furrows, and he looks to Jason, and then down.

“Oh,” he says, touching a hand dumbly to his belly, “I forgot.”

His fingers, when they come away, are red, red, red.

* * *

Bruce’s tragedies tend to happen to him in person. They’re scarred into his memory in shades of gunshots and blood and burning, visceral and broken down. 

The apologetic note in the voice of the police officer whose name he’s already forgotten is different, but he’s afraid he might remember it all the same. 

“To the town car,” Alfred instructs from behind him, steady as ever. Bruce follows him like a lamb, body catching up faster than his brain does. That’s still saying,  _ Tim. _

“Whatever happens,” Alfred says into the quiet between them, “It will be alright.”

It’s not true, and it’s not a comfort, except for how it is. Perhaps because his definition of ‘alright’ is ‘alive’ and not a single iota better than that.

Either thirty minutes or thirty seconds later, Alfred pulls up in front of the emergency department doors and ushers Bruce out with a look, saying something about parking the car and then coming to find him. It’s pouring rain just like it was earlier, pelting his bare head where it had run off his cowl less than an hour ago. His brain stores that like more stupid proof, puzzle-pieces to haunt him later even when they feel distant now.

A uniformed cop huddling under the eaves hurriedly stubs his cigarette and jerks forward, arm outstretched. “Mister Wayne!”

“Sir,” Bruce replies, pausing just in time to shake his hand instead of trying to walk straight through him for the door, “Do you know where my son is?”

“I had word about ten minutes ago that he’s gone in for surgery, but that’s all I know,” the cop says, somewhere between conciliatory and awestruck. He looks about twelve years old. “Let me take you through and find someone to give you some more information.”

“Lead the way,” Bruce says, rather than  _ get the hell out of my way _ , which is what he desperately wants to say in that bone-shaking Batman voice. Fear never made him stupid, though it’s only the memory of that fact that keeps him from actively being stupid right now.

The ED waiting room of Mercy General is the usual fluorescent-bathed scene of drunks and the pallid ill and crying kids. In a coat and sweatpants, Bruce doesn’t draw many looks besides that of the staff members at the desk who are obviously expecting him.

Also, in one of the waiting room chairs is Jason Todd in a hoodie and red Knights ballcap, watching Bruce unashamedly. When their eyes meet, he stands.

They have a rule to stay away from hospitals unless they’re injured in their civilian lives, or if it’s totally unavoidable. Every night they go out, Bruce knows everything could come tumbling down with a phone call from a hospital just like this one and an unmasking, one of them cut out of their suits for surgery or worse, but he’d rather have living children than Batman, it turns out. 

Red Robin left the Cave tonight and didn’t come home, but Tim is smart, and Jason is here, and the cop hasn’t put him in handcuffs yet. So Red Robin might have been injured, but Bruce is here for Tim Drake, and it seems Jason is too.

“Mister Wayne, this is the man who brought your son in. He wanted to wait until you got here,” the cop says from Bruce’s shoulder, and he sounds a little proud of this like it’s somehow his doing, and also a little baffled because good samaritanism isn’t generally a Gotham staple.

“Mister Wayne,” Jason says, before Bruce can say anything at all. His hands are stuffed in his pockets. “I’m real sorry ‘bout your kid.”

He doesn’t sound like himself . He sounds like a blue-collar boy from the Bowery, which is what he might have ended up as if Bruce had never met him - assuming, of course, that he lived long enough.

“Thank you,” Bruce says, a little hoarse. “You brought him here?”

“Figured it was the best place for him,” Jason replies with a little shrug. “Closest.” So Tim had been in the south tonight. Bruce catalogues that too. “He was still awake when I got him here. Reckon if he’s tough enough for that, he’s gonna be fine.” 

Jason, like all of them, is more than capable of determining a life-threatening injury from a life-ending one. So despite himself, despite the coded talk, Bruce feels a trickle of relief down the back of his throat. So much could still go wrong with Tim in surgery, but despite everything  _ else _ , Bruce trusts Jason.

“Thanks,” Bruce says again, and then hugs him.

It’s one-armed and in line with a desperate father hugging the stranger who probably saved his son. Even so, Jason - and it  _ is _ all Jason, no acting here - stiffens for a moment before withdrawing a hand from his pocket and placing it awkwardly on Bruce’s back.

“Mister Wayne?” A woman’s voice says, making him pull back. “If you’d come with me…”

“Of course,” Bruce replies, but his eyes catch on Jason’s hand as he steps back, encrusted with flaking blood. There’s a long moment where he just looks at it and thinks  _ that’s Tim’s _ , while the hovering cop and the waiting orderly do the same with matching airs of seeing a disturbing faux pas. 

“You got real lucky,” Jason says, still in that same mild Bowery tone, but his eyes are all Red Hood.

“Yeah,” Bruce says, and then to the orderly, “Lead the way.”


	2. Chapter 2

Tim is ignoring everyone. He’s shivering, and nothing anyone says is making any sense, and he feels nauseous and gross like he could puke any second.

Then, an unignorable voice says, “Hi, Tim.”

“Bruce?” Tim mumbles, because he would know that voice anywhere. 

“Are you actually awake now?” Bruce asks, sounding a little amused, and Tim must be, because these words he can understand.

“I’ve been awake,” he mumbles. “What happened?”

“You had surgery for an abdominal stab wound,” Bruce replies. “You’re in hospital.”

And Tim  _ must _ be awake, because he remembers everything. He keeps his eyes closed against the sting. “Oh.”

Tears slip down his cheeks past his ears in burning lines. He turns his face away, but warm calloused fingers catch him up gently to keep him still. “Tim?”

“I’m  _ sorry _ ,” Tim rasps, hiccupping miserably. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“Shhh,” Bruce says. It’s almost impossible to believe that his hands could be as gentle as they are as they brush away moisture from his skin, and then rub a little at his temples like he knows Tim’s head aches. “Don’t worry about it right now, okay? You can tell me later.”

“No,” Tim says. He tries to open his eyes, but they won’t focus and the light hurts. He’s still determinedly blinking when Bruce’s palm settles over them, forcing them closed. “No, you, you don’t know-” Bruce shouldn’t be doing this, not when he’s going to hate Tim later. It’ll make everything worse. Because Tim will have had this now and then he won’t, afterwards. And because Bruce will regret comforting Tim when he knows what Tim did.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bruce tells him. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter right now. Just sleep some more, okay? Just sleep.”

Tim doesn’t want to, but his body doesn’t care when it’s got his dad’s voice and his dad’s hands right there.

He thinks he sleeps for a while. He dreams about blood on his fingers and someone giving him a dose of pethidine for the shaking and Jason Todd calling 911.

Then he’s blinking at Alfred in the chair Bruce was in earlier, pencil scratching at a book of crosswords. Tim is struck suddenly by the amount of time Alfred has spent at various bedsides waiting when the man looks up and notices Tim is awake.

“Master Tim,” he says warmly. “It’s good to see those eyes open.”

“Al,” Tim says, dragging out the vowel awkwardly. He sounds drunk, which is weird, because he’s seventeen. “Where’s Bruce?”

“He just stepped out for a moment,” Alfred replies, patting his hand. “He’ll be back shortly.”

“When?” Tim asks, because it’s suddenly vital that Bruce hasn’t stepped out for a moment, that he’s here and that he isn’t angry at Tim. “Bruce?”

Alfred’s expression turns concerned, his grip firming on Tim’s hand. “Master Timothy-”

“Bruce!” Tim says, and he’s dimly aware that his voice has taken on the tone which would earn him a snapped,  _ Timothy! Behave yourself,  _ from his mother in her beautiful party dresses and ballgowns. He doesn’t want to be in trouble, he doesn’t want - he starts to call out again, but it breaks apart in a barking sob.

The door is swept open, and suddenly Bruce is there at his bedside, and just like that Tim is okay again. He sinks back into the bed, blinking up at Bruce, and then looking behind him to where Dick is hovering in the doorway.

“Oh,” he says. “Hi Dick.”

“Hi, Tim,” Dick replies, somewhat amused. “Good to see you’re keeping up the family tradition of coping poorly with anaesthetics.”

“What?” Tim asks, because Dick doesn’t usually use words that big. Maybe.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dick says, coming closer to ruffle Tim’s hair. It’s nice. Tim has missed him, lately. He can’t remember why right now. “Don’t worry about anything right now, okay?”

“Okay,” Tim replies peaceably, because he can’t think of any reasons to be worried anyway. 

The next thing he knows, it’s dark, the only lights coming from the window in the door to the hallway and the glow of the machines around the bed. He’s less stupid, this time, and he hurts more.

Bruce is standing next to the window, conversing with a indistinct black shape that Tim wouldn’t be able to identify if it weren’t for Damian’s high, familiar voice. No wonder civilians find the Bats so creepy.

“-the body at the morgue,” Damian is saying, “Todd reports that his injuries are consistent with those given in self-defense.” 

“And you?” Bruce asks, his voice a sotto voce grumble. “What is your opinion?”

Damian is quiet for a moment, and then sniffs. “Does it matter?” He sounds prickly, which is unusual. Generally he loves to give his opinion, particularly when it’s unwanted. Maybe that’s the problem.

“Of course,” Bruce replies.

“I think this is one situation where it does none of us any favours for me to tell you what I think,” Damian replies stiffly. “Seeing as you already know what my answer will be, but have no desire to hear it.”

“Damian-” Bruce starts, but the dark shape has already disappeared off of the sill with a flash of yellow from the cape’s underside. Bruce sighs and slides the window closed, turning back towards the room. He pauses when he notices that Tim is awake and watching him, eating up the distance between them in two strides.

“Tim,” he says, and his voice is warm. “How are you feeling?”

“It’s my fault,” Tim says woodenly. “I killed him.”

Bruce sighs again, and pulls a chair up to the bed to sit in. “Tim-”

“I didn’t mean to,” Tim interrupts, and hates himself for it. He’d thought, while he’d been waiting for Jason, of how he might tell Bruce what happened. His plan had been to own up to it immediately, to accept whatever Bruce said with dignity, and then - his imagination had failed him. Jason and Damian have both done the same thing as him, and they’re still free, not locked up in Blackgate. But Tim - Tim is different. He’s not a child trained as an assassin too early to ever really lose that instinct, and he’s not Pit-mad. He made a mistake, one he really didn’t mean to, but he knows that isn’t an excuse.

He flinches a bit when Bruce takes his hand, and then relaxes when he just...holds it. That’s okay, he thinks. He’ll take what comfort he can get.

“Are you hurting?” Bruce asks.

Tim shakes his head, biting his lip. He is, but he doesn’t want more drugs right now making him stupid and emotional.

“Tim.” This said low, a warning.

“I’m okay,” Tim insists, and then, “I’m sorry.”

“Tim, hush,” Bruce says. He’s frowning now. “I know I ask...very much of you all. Perhaps an impossible amount, though, honestly, I have yet to see any of you prove anything at all to be impossible. I also know that we all accept any time we go out, we might not come back. But I find it a difficult concept to think that any of my children might place the life of someone determined to kill them over their own, if it comes down to that.”

He leans his free elbow on the mattress at Tim’s side. He looks tired in the limited light, mouth pulled down, but contemplative as he examines his fingers covering Tim’s. 

“I wasn’t good enough,” Tim rasps, because that’s the heart of it. He should have been good enough to deal with a two-bit criminal like Melvin Smalls without breaking a sweat. But as soon as the knife had sunk in to him, he’d known something was terribly wrong. He hadn’t needed the human anatomy portion of his Biology textbook to know that, either. He hadn’t been able to keep a hold of his staff, fingers and knees going weak-

Then Smalls had had him by the throat, and Tim had really meant to strike him in the eye, but he’d been desperate, and he’d hit too hard, he  _ fucked up _ -

He lets out a little harsh breath, squeezing his eyes shut and then opening them again.

“There’s no such thing as ‘good enough’ when it comes to staying alive,” Bruce says, which is something he’s said before. Usually in the opposite situation to this one, though. 

“You don’t know what happened yet,” Tim mumbles, because Bruce is smarter than him, and will know immediately where Tim screwed up, where a better man would have gotten out of that situation before it got to that point.

“I also find that no matter what my children do, I have yet to stop loving them,” Bruce says simply. “I don’t know what happened, not entirely. But it doesn’t matter. Whatever it was, we deal with it.”

“You...usually you…” Tim starts, and then feels kind of bad about it so stops. Sure, Bruce doesn’t usually act like this when one of his kids kills someone. But it’s pretty dumb of Tim to act like he expects worse, for a start. It’s not like he  _ wants _ it to be worse.

Bruce makes a soft chuff of a laugh. “The thing about having as many children as I do is that you’re bound to improve as a parent eventually.”

“You’re a good dad,” Tim murmurs, because good dads try and Bruce has never stopped doing that.

“I’m a passable father,” Bruce corrects, sweeping his thumb over Tim’s knuckles. “A good one wouldn’t have his second-eldest and youngest sons stomping all over the city waiting for me to make a mistake with you. A good one wouldn’t have you so frightened that you go to your brother before him.”

“No,” Tim says, because that’s not really what had happened. He’d just wanted reassurance. Or information, which to him amounts to the same thing. He hadn’t exactly been thinking straight - if he had, he would have got medical attention earlier. “Jason gets it.”

“Gets what?” There’s something in his face like censure.

Tim flaps his free hand a little. “Everything. Me. Dunno.” 

“I think you gave him a hell of a scare,” Bruce says. 

It’s not like he doesn’t know Jason gets scared, but it seems like a weird thing in regards to Tim, specifically. He remembers Jason’s impatience in the dark, and then the wide-eyed look he got when the lights went on, his palm pressing hard into the soft meat of Tim’s belly and then not much more than that. He snorts, kind of. It comes out more like a wheeze.

“You lost a lot of blood.”

“Wasn’t thinking straight,” Tim says. “I just had to…”

“Had to what?”

“Ask.”

Bruce looks wounded, somehow. Like he’s the one bleeding. Tim’s still-slow brain catches up a little. “Not like that! He’s - killed people. Before. I needed to - I didn’t think I was going to  _ die _ .”

“You nearly did, though,” Bruce says gently.

“But I didn’t think that!” And if he had, he wouldn’t have gone to  _ Jason _ for comfort.

...probably. He’s not so bad at it, really. 

“Okay,” Bruce replies peaceably. “Painkillers now, I think.”

“Bruce, no,” Tim protests, holding his hand fast like he doesn’t have another perfectly capable of reaching for the call button on the panel next to the bed. 

Bruce looks down at him. “May I remind you that less than twenty-four hours ago, you  _ forgot _ that you were bleeding out?”

“...I can’t believe he told you that,” Tim mutters, the memory suddenly burningly clear in his mind. “Tattletale.  _ Fine _ .”

So Bruce calls the night nurse, who speaks with him quietly and then administers something into the IV while Tim tries to get comfortable. He’s tired, despite having slept the whole day away, and he knows that, Bruce’s current mood aside, there’s more to deal with yet. He doesn’t know what, and the drugs steal his ability to imagine it fast.

“You’re gonna stay, right?” Tim asks, his eyelids feeling like they’re being dragged closed by bricks. 

A big warm hand closes over his again, steady. Safe as houses. Tim forgot that, but it’s hard to forget again when Bruce is right here. “I’ll stay, Tim.”


	3. Chapter 3

Even when they’re not trying to, the Bats fuck Jason up.

He should know what to expect by now. Somehow, though, he’s always a step behind and struggling to catch up. Surprised by Tim bleeding out in his apartment, hoping like hell his successor wasn’t going to follow in his footsteps into his own grave. God-damned shell-shocked by Bruce hugging him in a dingy ED in downtown Gotham. 

He can’t guess at their intentions - it would make him crazier than he already is if he tried. He goes home and cleans Tim’s DNA off his kitchen floor instead, tearing up the stained carpet to burn later like a good little co-conspirator. By the time he’s finished, the sun is up, and he’s drained enough adrenaline to get some sleep.

He wakes up to late afternoon sunlight and the sound of his door opening. His hand is on his piece before his eyes are all the way open, right as a haughty little voice says, “Todd, wake up."

“For fuck’s sake,” Jason groans, dropping the gun back onto his sidetable and throwing his arm over his eyes. This does nothing to dissuade Damian, who is somehow audibly transmitting his impatience from Jason’s bedside. 

“Are you going to laze away all day?” he demands.

“Shouldn’t you be at school?” Jason is ninety percent sure eleven year olds are meant to be in school on Thursdays.

“It is four-thirty, classes would have finished an hour ago. But I had an excused absence today.” A small hand wraps around Jason’s wrist, pulling at it. “ _ Get up _ . We have work to do.”

This does get Jason’s eyes open. He says, “You and I don’t work together.”

“Tonight we do,” Damian replies, and pulls Jason’s arm again. Jason, for reasons of weighing easily twice what Damian does, doesn’t budge. The indignity of being hauled at like an oversized doll is truly overpowered by watching the little twerp fail to move him an inch over the mattress.

“How did you get here?” Jason asks, with growing suspicion. “Who’s meant to be babysitting you right now?”

“I’m not a baby,” Damian snarls. 

His many parental failings aside, there’s no chance Bruce would leave his kid at home unaccompanied. Jason gropes for his phone with a faintly hunted feeling. The screen is a scrolling record of calls from Steph that he’s slept through. “Fuck. You ditched Steph?”

Damian is stubbornly silent at that, arms crossed and not nearly as nervous as he should be, considering that at any second a black-gloved hand is going to reach through Jason’s window and grab him around the throat. Steph is one thing, and her tendency to call Cass immediately for backup is another order entirely.

“Move it, squirt,” Jason tells Damian, kneeing him out of the way so he can get up. He ignores the squawk about putting clothes on in favour of shooting both girls a text to tell them he’s got the world’s smallest ninja in hand. Steph’s immediately reply is a long keysmash and then a capitalised ‘FUCK’: Cass’s is the bird head emoji, a little house, and the red heart.

“You eaten, kid?” Jason asks, pulling on some sweats. It’s still light out, Damian’s hurry aside. Even if he wanted to go now, he wouldn’t take Robin with him in daylight. 

“...no,” Damian replies after a moment. 

Jason suspects he hasn’t eaten all day. Like father, like son. “Okay. Come on.”

In the kitchen, he puts a bunch of frozen hash browns into the oven, and then cracks eggs into a bowl. Damian hangs around behind him, which Jason would find annoying if he hadn’t seen the kid do the same to Alfred in the kitchen.

“I am vegetarian,” he says, when Jason starts producing other ingredients from the fridge. 

“I know that,” Jason replies, very tolerantly, he thinks. How Damian thinks he wouldn’t know something so basic about him, he does not know, but he’s prepared and willing to blame Bruce. “How do you feel about capsicum?”

“It is good.” Damian is now nearly in the fridge with him. “You have fresh scallion.”

“Unlike everyone else in this family besides Alfred, I am a fully-functioning human being,” Jason replies, before really thinking about it. Damian makes a chuffing noise that Jason recognises as a laugh instead of stabbing him for claiming to be part of the family, so it must be fine. “Here, show me your knife skills and cut this up.”

Which is how he ends up watching the second Robin in two days in his kitchen, except this one is taking apart vegetables with truly terrifying efficiency instead of bleeding out. Jason makes omelettes, and then watches Damian pick at his food until his stomach seems to catch up with his brain and remind him that he’s ravenous. 

By the time they’ve finished, it’s dark out, so they gear up. As Jason throws his jacket on, he says, “I assume, seeing as you’re here, you have somewhere you want to go.”

There’s enough of them now that even with several of them at another’s bedside, there are plenty left over to chase leads and hit the streets. It’s not surprising that Damian, his domino firmly stuck down, replies, “Oracle traced Red Robin’s tracker last night and noted a body had been picked up at one of his previous locations. That body has been sent to the GCPD morgue.”

“Great,” Jason says. At least he knows exactly why the kid is here now, if he’d had reason to doubt it before.

The GCPD morgue is in the basement of the building, and it’s one that the Bats have broken into dozens of times over the years. Jason suspects Gordon knows that they do it, which is why the security remains the same - then again, they’re probably not going to waste manpower on security for corpses, either. Getting inside is a matter of crawling through a ground-level window, something that was much easier when Jason was thirteen than it is now.

He sheds the jacket again, leaving him in just his bodysuit. “Stay out here.”

“Hood,” Damian replies, testy as anything. 

Jason tosses the jacket at him, and is utterly unsurprised when Damian steps aside and lets it thump to the ground. “Make a distraction if you see someone coming.” Then he levers the window open and slides through it, closing it firmly behind him.

The morgue is well-lit but deserted inside, a contrast to the distant bustle of movement he can hear in the precinct overhead. Presumably their morticians work during the daylight hours for anyone that isn’t a rogue or a government figure.

He slips open the chiller drawers in the storage unit until he finds the right toe-tag, dragging the thing fully open after snapping on nitrile gloves and a facemask. When he unzips the body bag, it’s pretty unexciting - the man inside is bruised lightly across the face, but the blood is already starting to settle post-mortem. 

He hasn’t been autopsied yet, which is a little surprising, but fine by Jason - he’s not squeamish, but there’s something vaguely repulsive about slicing and dicing a body postmortem that he doesn’t like spending time with, even when it’s done officially. Maybe because he got autopsied once. Maybe because he once mutilated the bodies of drug dealers, back when he was really crazy. 

There’s nothing at all obviously wrong enough with him to kill someone until Jason flips the body and finds a stark crater in the back of the guy’s skull.

“What are your findings,” a too-young voice demands from behind him. Jason doesn’t jump.

“Open occipital bone fracture,” he replies without looking up. “Signs of subdural haemorrhage - that’s probably what killed him.”

“He was struck in the head?” Damian says, coming closer. He seems wary, though whether it’s of Jason or the body, Jason isn’t entirely sure.

“Have you done much forensic examination?” Jason asks.

“I’ve seen many bodies,” Damian replies spikily, which Jason doesn’t doubt but also isn’t what he just asked. It’s still answer enough, though.

“B didn’t let me examine ‘em until I was fourteen,” Jason says easily, turning the body back over. “I’d seen plenty too. See the bruising pattern on the right cheek and the nose?”

“...yes,” Damian replies after a moment. “It looks like he was struck there.”

“The nasal cartilage is damaged, but it happened close enough to death that there’s hardly any bruising,” Jason explains, “You’ve seen how fast a broken nose swells. I’d say Red sucker-punched him and he didn’t catch himself. Cracked the back of his head on the curb, which is what killed him.”

“Self-defense,” Damian summarises.

“Did you expect anything else? This is Tim we’re talking about.” Not either of them.

“Timothy’s  _ modus operandi _ doesn’t include making mistakes.”

“Babybat, everyone makes mistakes.” Jason zips the body bag closed and slides the drawer home. 

Damian makes a quiet  _ tt _ , and then asks, “You’ll pass this information on to Father?”

“Not a chance,” Jason replies. “I’ve already seen him enough this week to last me for a year.”

“He seeks you out,” Damian says in what appears to be agreement, as though it’s both common knowledge and a normal topic of conversation. Jason, who was trying to ignore that little factoid, winces.

“He likes to lecture me face-to-face,” he says, instead of  _ shut up shut up shut up _ . “Voicemail just doesn’t have the effect he’s looking for.”

Damian gives him a dubious look he’s definitely too young for. Too much time spent around Grayson. He says, “Of course.”

They’re back at the window now, which Damian has left cracked open. Jason pushes it wide, and then in one swift motion, picks Damian up around the waist and boosts him through it. The kid squawks satisfyingly.

“Unhand me at once, Hood!”

“Sure thing.” He lets go, watching the kid straighten himself up like a ruffled cat. He pushes himself out, closing the window behind himself and picking up his jacket.

“I am going to travel north from here and complete a patrol,” Damian tells him. “I’ll travel via the hospital.”

It’s an invitation, or the closest to one that Jason will ever get. 

“Go home, Robin,” Jason tells him. Because the kid _is_ Robin, is not his responsibility and doesn’t need babysitting, he splits away and leaves Damian behind.

* * *

Bruce is unconvinced that leaving Tim’s side is a good idea, but he’s equally unconvinced that he should allow his eleven-year-old to continue traipsing across the city while angry with him. That’s why he leaves a still-asleep Tim in Alfred and Dick’s care and goes home.

Also, he needs a shower. He smells of fear sweat and hospital antiseptic.

The house is quiet when he enters, and when he whistles there’s no answering sound of a very large dog coming to greet him. It’s early still, the light spilling thin and grey through the windows. Cass is perched on the kitchen bench when he enters, but she flies into his arms straight away with a sniffled, “Dad.”

He cups the back of her head. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she replies, turning so she’s looking up at his face without pulling away. “Okay?”

“Tired,” he says, because she already knows that, “But okay. How was patrol?”

“Quiet. Mostly watching,” she says, while signing Damian’s name.

“Where is he?”

“Asleep,” Cass tells him, see-sawing her hand. “Here.”

Bruce exhales and waits until she releases him to let go himself. “I’ll go speak to him and then come back. Do you want to go see Tim?”

She nods eagerly. He strokes a light hand over her hair and then turns for the stairs, taking himself up to the quiet third floor. Damian’s door is the only one closed down the hall, besides Jason’s always-shut one. Bruce pushes it open soundlessly, peering inside.

As ever, the vast majority of the mattress has been given over to Titus’s enormous snoring bulk. Damian is curled onto his side away from the door, which is the unusual part - usually he sprawls to fill whatever space the dog leaves.

“Damian,” Bruce says quietly, “Can we talk?”

He thinks for a moment he might be ignored, but then Damian sighs like someone much older - like Bruce himself, though he refuses to consider that on a higher level than pure observation - and rolls over. He looks as tired as Bruce feels.

“Father,” he says, gaze guarded as he pushes himself up to sit. Titus huffs at the disturbance, wriggling his snout under Damian’s pillow.

Bruce can’t resist running a gentle hand over his bedhead. It feels a long time ago that Dick was Damian’s size, the others too, but it’s the same crushing sweetness in his chest now to see his child and touch them and know they’re his. Damian, long inured to touch, just frowns at him.

“Father,” he says again. “Is Drake alright?”

“He’s doing well. He’ll need at least another night in hospital to finish his IV antibiotics, but he’s recovering well so far,” Bruce replies. Truthfully, the concern in his youngest son’s voice warms him. “He won’t be back in uniform for a while though.”

“I presumed you would ‘ground him’,” Damian says, with inverted commas included. True proof that even a few hours spent with Jason is too much. He sounds prickly still, nearly combative.

It’s hard to find the words for what he wants to say - he’s never really known the right ones, for this. Maybe for anything. He’s good at many, many things, but speaking is always the skill that tends to let him down. He sighs.

“If I did,” he attempts, “It would be for him. Because I thought he couldn’t maintain objectivity.”

Damian makes a face as though he’s tasted something bad. Gone are the days of the little soldier with the perpetually blank expression. “Objectivity.”

“Because I thought he was hurting,” Bruce corrects. Damian blinks, surprised. “Because I was worried.”

“You don’t need to be worried that Drake will have a repeat performance,” Damian says. “I feel certain that this particular situation was a fluke.”

“Hm,” Bruce says. Sometimes parenting Damian is like having an irate British professor in the body of an eleven-year-old who looks just like him. “Lie back.”

Damian blows out a persecuted breath, but does as bid. There’s no mention of the sly little lick Titus gives him on the cheek as he curls on his side, but there is an involuntary flick of the corners of his mouth upwards. “Why?”

“No reason,” Bruce says, and then likely belies that but rubbing at Damian’s exposed back. “Actually, I meant I worry about you. All of you. Every day.”

Damian doesn’t reply. After a moment, he rolls more onto his stomach to give Bruce better access.

“Also, I value your opinion very much,” he continues, because that comment of Damian’s had stung. The purpose of Robin isn’t and has never been to follow Batman’s instructions blindly and without comment. Damian certainly has never paused in holding back in speaking his mind - as far as Bruce knows, anyway.

This is greeted by a faint hum. It sounds like agreement, and Bruce dearly hopes it is. Damian seems to be knocking out, his breathing slowing.

“We’ll go see Tim later with Cass,” Bruce adds, low. “Once you’ve had some sleep.”

“Not tired,” Damian replies, in a tired, grumpy voice. Then he empties a sigh into the pillow. 

“Of course. We can patrol tonight for a few hours, but it’s back to school tomorrow.”

“Tt. Shh.”

Bruce, mouth turning up, pulls the blankets to Damian’s shoulders. He whispers, “Sleep well.”

* * *

“What the hell are you doing?” demands a voice Tim really doesn’t want to hear right now. Not the voice he least wants to hear, sure - that honour goes to Alfred, closely followed by Bruce - but it is right up there.

He ignores it anyway, stretching his right leg down towards the next foothold.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” the voice mutters. A hand grasps his ankle and guides his foot into place. “Don’t move, kiddo.”

“‘M not a kid,” Tim replies. 

“What you are is an idiot,” Jason replies. “Seriously, stop moving!”

“No,” Tim replies, and grunts in irritation when Jason stops his left leg from moving. 

“Okay fuck this,” Jason says, seemingly to himself, and then swarms up the wall over top of Tim. Stupid long arms. “You couldn’t have brought rope? Tied some bedsheets together? Made like fucking Rapunzel?”

“Don’t need them,” Tim says, which is true. Probably.

Jason is strapping a harness onto him and tying them together when there’s the distinctive sound of a window being thrown open. Damn.

“Holy Jesus fuck,” says Dick from above them. “Tim!”

“He’s fine,” Jason replies. “An idiot, but fine. Haul us up?”

“Oh fuck, oh Christ,” Dick says, relieved, and then, “As long as you help, you must eat bricks for every meal.”

“Don’t you dare bodyshame me! You ornery bastard. Here, I’ll throw you a line.”

“Shh,” Tim says, suddenly anxious. “The nurses will hear.”

“This is Gotham, they won’t even notice. Also, are you really more scared of nurses than you are of fucking Batman? Here, help us out, Timmy, you’re not as light as you look.”

“Rude,” Tim mutters. Dick reaches out and takes him from Jason to haul him up over the windowsill when he reaches it, hurriedly unharnessing him. Tim is expecting to be dumped back on the bed and yelled at, but instead Dick holds him like he’s a teddy bear, hugging him close and smoothing his hair.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he says, pressing his mouth hard to Tim’s forehead. “What were you thinking?”

“Gotta get out of here,” Tim replies, wriggling a bit. Dick reluctantly lets him slide to the floor.

"Oh god, that's the last thing you need to do," he says, doing a quick check for injuries. He doesn't find anything, obviously. "Where were you even going?"

Tim shrugs. Admittedly he hadn't gotten quite that far. He would have had plenty of time to think about it during the climb though.

“Fine, don’t help me then,” Jason huffs, squashing himself through the window with an unsubtle scraping of zippers and leather and kevlar. “On the upside, he’s clearly fine and feeling pretty fucking frisky. Don’t you have a bat protocol for sedating noncompliant patients?”

“Yeah - for you,” Dick replies sweetly, releasing Tim at last. “Here, come sit.”

Dick folds him back into the bed he escaped from not twenty minutes ago. He’s still a bit wild-eyed, and Tim feels bad about that - he’d tried to make sure Dick had stayed asleep in the chair. 

“I’m fine,” he says, patting Dick on the arm reassuringly.

“What you are is insane,” Dick replies, patting him back. “Oh, hey, do you have cameras on us or something?”

Tim blinks, becoming aware that his brothers’ attention has wavered. When he follows their eyes, he finds Batman in the still-open window. “B!”

“What is going on,” Bruce replies, not really a question. 

“Just hanging out,” Jason replies. He’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed. “Well, Tim tried to escape via free solo descent, but  _ now _ we’re just hanging out.”

“That’s really not a fair representation of what happened,” Tim rasps.

“I’m pleased to see you’re feeling better,” Bruce says, apparently without irony. Well, it could be sarcasm, but it doesn’t seem like that either. “May I remind you that leaving a hospital under suspicious circumstances is not a good look when you are being treated under your real name?”

“You could have checked me in under a fake name,” Tim points out. “I had a fake ID on me and everything.”

“Okay, well, next time I have to hand your unconscious ass over to hospital staff I’ll remember that,” Jason says. He’s  _ definitely _ being sarcastic.

“My point remains,” Bruce replies. “Stay in bed. It’s only one more night.”

“Fine,” Tim says. He’s not pouting. Mostly. He flops back onto the mattress, pressing his face to the pillow.

There’s a long moment of silence where Tim can feel himself being stared at by multiple pairs of eyes, and then Bruce says, “Good. I’ll return in the morning.”

“B,” Dick hisses, like Tim is deaf instead of stabbed. “That seems - do you really - I could cuff him to the bed, that might be better-”

“I trust Tim,” Bruce replies. The words are a balm to the burning in Tim’s chest he hadn’t realised he was still feeling. 

“Do you?” Jason asks, combative. His tone makes Tim want to pat him on the head.

“Of course,” Bruce replies evenly. “Are you staying here?”

“No, I just stopped in to prevent the kid from splatting on the pavement on my way past.” There’s the sound of him moving - leather and kevlar make a really distinctive noise when Jason isn’t trying to be silent - and then a hand ruffles Tim’s hair. “Dickie’s on bird watch tonight. Where’s the littlest monkey?”

“A neighbourhood over with Black Bat, for now,” Bruce replies easily enough. “Join us.”

Jason laughs. Tim feels the skin over his shoulder blades tighten a little at the prospect of this conversation going abruptly sour. But instead he just continues, “Fine, old man. Outta my way, this window ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

“Send Cassie to hang out later. This one is boring when he sleeps,” Dick says, and slumps back into the chair by Tim’s bed.

“I’m not boring,” Tim replies. Probably that’s what he says, anyway. His arms are pretty tired, his side aching a little. The words come out slurring.

“Don’t handcuff your brother to the bed,” Bruce says to Dick, a touch muffled. At ten stories up, his words are whipped away quick into the Gotham night. “Tim - rest. Tomorrow night you’ll be home.” Then there’s the hiss of a grapple being deployed, followed by Jason’s quiet whoop.

By home, he means the manor, not Tim’s apartment. Tim is okay with that. More than, really.


End file.
